From February 10 to 12, 2025, Ambassador Tran Van Tuan and the delegation of the Embassy of Viet Nam paid a visit to Kiruna City, Norrbotten County, the northernmost area of Sweden. The program was organized by the ASEAN Committee in Stockholm.

The delegation visited the mining site of LKAB - one of the oldest mining companies in Sweden, established in 1890. Exchanging with the delegation, Mr. David Hognelid, Vice President of LKAB said that Kiruna mine is the largest underground iron mine in the world, currently drilled by LKAB to a depth of about 2,300 meters for exploitation. The company is pioneering advanced mining technology, using renewable energy, environmentally friendly, notably the technology to produce "sponge" iron, which contains no carbon, making an important contribution to Sweden's goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. LKAB is also mining rare earths in Kiruna, which was discovered in early 2023, and is considered one of the largest rare earth deposits in Europe.

Working with the Kiruna Space campus of Lulea University of Technology (LTU), the delegation was introduced by leading experts from LTU, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) and the space research company EISCAT about the functions and missions of the above agencies and organizations. Accordingly, these are the leading research facilities in Sweden and Europe in the fields of space, atmosphere, Earth's magnetic field, etc., with many contributions to the world's aerospace and satellite manufacturing industries. The delegation also visited the laboratories of LTU, IRF and EISCAT.

Addressing at the working trip, Ambassador Tran Van Tuan hoped to connect the relationship between LKAB and Vietnamese partners to promote cooperation between the two countries in the field of mining, especially sharing experiences and technologies in environmentally friendly mineral mining. On the LTU side, the Ambassador asked the school's leaders to share more information about their scholarship policy for international students so that the Vietnamese Embassy can have measures to attract Vietnamese students to study at LTU./.